The Robot Invasion1

∷橙子 選 段會(huì)香 注

The question that haunted the post-war industrial tech boom of the 1950s is rising again:2. haunt： 縈繞在心頭，長(zhǎng)期困擾；boom： 繁榮，景氣。Have we reached a stage at which technology is destroying more jobs than it’s creating?

If you want a sense of where the nation’s job market is headed,a good place to stand is inside the half-mile-long Skechers warehouse in Moreno Valley, California, where box after box of shoes is stacked upon row after row of shelving, which soars some 40 feet in the air.3. 如果你想知道美國(guó)的就業(yè)市場(chǎng)在哪里，你可以去斯凱奇在加州莫雷諾谷的倉(cāng)庫(kù)站會(huì)兒。這個(gè)倉(cāng)庫(kù)長(zhǎng)達(dá)半英里，一箱箱的鞋子被堆放在一排排的架子上，這些架子都高達(dá)40英尺。Skechers： 斯凱奇，全球最受歡迎鞋類產(chǎn)品的品牌之一，1992年誕生在加州的一個(gè)海濱小城市，現(xiàn)在它在美國(guó)市場(chǎng)是僅次于耐克的第二大鞋類品牌；stack： 堆，垛；soar： 高聳，屹立。Physically, the place is a wonder—quiet,sleek, and environmentally friendly (at 1.8 million square feet,it’s the largest of ficially certi fied “LEED Gold” building in the country).4. sleek： 整潔的；certify： 書(shū)面證明，頒發(fā)證書(shū)；LEED Gold： LEED是由美國(guó)綠色建筑委員會(huì)（USCBC）制定并推出的能源與環(huán)境建筑認(rèn)證系統(tǒng)（Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design Building Rating System），國(guó)際上簡(jiǎn)稱LEED。LEED產(chǎn)品分為四個(gè)級(jí)別，金級(jí)需滿足至少60分。But what’s most remarkable about the $250 million structure, which opened in 2011, is how few people work there.

A driverless crane swung into motion nearby, delivering a box of shoes to its appointed spot in the stacks.5. swing： 搖擺，懸擺；appointed： 指定的。A moment later, guided by a web of sensors and software, the mammoth contraption plucked another box and shuttled it in a different direction.6. sensor： 傳感器；mammoth： 龐然大物；contraption：奇妙的裝置，新發(fā)明；pluck： 摘；shuttle： 以短程往復(fù)方式運(yùn)送（貨物等）。Then it zipped7. zip： 快速移動(dòng)，飛速行動(dòng)。back, red lights flashing. In this immense section of the facility, nobody lays a finger on any of the goods, all stamped “Made in China.”

關(guān)于機(jī)器人的好萊塢大片有不少，但是你是否認(rèn)真考慮過(guò)這種類似機(jī)器人的高科技給人們生活帶來(lái)的影響？事物都有兩面性，高科技的到來(lái)也是有利有弊，但是究竟是利大還是弊大，這種發(fā)展又是否是可持續(xù)的呢？

About 700 people work in the Skechers warehouse, and as many as 300 more could be added in the next few years as business expands. That,however, is about 30 percent fewer jobs than one would expect at a more traditional logistics operation8. logistics operation： 物流運(yùn)作，物流操作。of the same size. A local newspaper,The Press-Enterprise, reported last year that because Skechers transferred work to Moreno Valley from a handful of less-automated warehouses, it has meant a net loss of as many as 400 jobs across the area.9. 一家名為《商報(bào)》的地方報(bào)紙報(bào)道說(shuō)，斯凱奇公司去年把工作由自動(dòng)化程度不高的幾個(gè)倉(cāng)庫(kù)轉(zhuǎn)移到莫雷諾谷，相當(dāng)于這個(gè)地區(qū)直接丟失400個(gè)就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)。(Skechers of ficials declined to comment.)

Perhaps. But looking around the warehouse, much of which feels like a ghost town, one can’t help but wonder: Where does it all end?

Fears that automation will eat employment are hardly new. A decade or so after the end of World War II, concerns about what some were calling the“Second Industrial Revolution” mounted10. mount： 增加，上升。.

Corporate executives of the era largely dismissed these worries,maintaining that for every worker cast aside by a machine, even more jobs were being generated.11. 多數(shù)企業(yè)的高管們想消除這些擔(dān)憂，他們聲明說(shuō)對(duì)于機(jī)器所替換下來(lái)的每一個(gè)工人，有更多新出現(xiàn)的就業(yè)機(jī)會(huì)在等著他們。cast aside：拋棄，廢除。“Technological progress sets off a sort of chain reaction of economic growth,” Ralph Cordiner, the president of General Electric, assured Congress in 1955.12. set off： 引起，引發(fā)；chain reaction：連鎖反應(yīng)。Ralph Cordiner： 拉爾夫·科迪納，1950至1963年間任通用電氣公司CEO；assure： 向……保證，使……確信，使……放心。

Mostly, job gains were realized at the very same companies where new technology was being deployed, as huge increases in output led to the need for more workers overall—of fice personnel, engineers, maintenance staff,factory hands—to keep up with rising consumer demand.13. 通常情況下，實(shí)現(xiàn)就業(yè)增長(zhǎng)的恰巧是那些采用新科技的公司，因?yàn)楫a(chǎn)量的增長(zhǎng)使對(duì)勞動(dòng)者的需求增加——辦公室人員、工程師、維修人員以及工廠工人——為了跟上消費(fèi)需求的增長(zhǎng)。deploy： 有效地利用，配置，開(kāi)展。Labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein has pointed out that payrolls in the U.S. automobile industry swelled14. swell： 增長(zhǎng)，膨脹。by about 15 percent through the 1950s and 1960s even as technology spread and factory productivity more than doubled.

More broadly, a 1963 study by University of Chicago economist Yale Brozen found that while 13 million jobs had been destroyed during the 1950s, the adoption of new technology was among the key ingredients15. ingredient： 要素，因素。that led to the creation of more than 20 million jobs.

In the end, the first big wave of postwar technological change was far from benign. But, on balance, it didn’t destroy nearly as many jobs as some had predicted. Even labor leaders acknowledged it was inevitable that machines would play an ever larger role in the lives of workers and that the trend could bring plenty of bene fits if managed right.

Reuther, for one, responded to advancing technology in various ways,including pushing for a guaranteed annual wage from the car companies—a cash balm for any workers idled by automation.16. 例如魯瑟回應(yīng)高新科技的方式就有很多種，包括從汽車(chē)公司爭(zhēng)取最低年薪保證——對(duì)于因自動(dòng)化而被閑置的工人來(lái)講，這是一種慰藉。balm： 慰藉（物）；idle： 虛度，使閑置。But the surest means of keeping machines from biting17. bite： 此處引申為影響，侵害。too hard was to teach as many people as possible to use them.

Today, U.S. companies continue to invest heavily in training, pouring more than $60 billion a year into such initiatives.18. invest： 投資，投入；initiative：積極的行動(dòng)，倡議。But unlike in the past, businesses say they can no longer rely on their workers’ obtaining the skills they need from another crucial source: the public classroom.

In the future, “it is a safe bet that the human labor market will center on three kinds of work,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Frank Levy and Harvard’s Richard Murnane write in “Dancing with Robots,” a report issued in June by the Washington-based think tank Third Way19. Third Way： 一家年輕的智庫(kù)，宣稱自己是代表中間派，服務(wù)于中產(chǎn)階級(jí)的發(fā)展，主張強(qiáng)硬卻靈活的安全政策以及清潔能源革命等。其前三任主席現(xiàn)在都在奧巴馬團(tuán)隊(duì)中任高層。. The first is solving unstructured problems. The second is acquiring, making sense of, and communicating new information. Computers aren’t good at either of these tasks. The third is non-routine manual labor (like schlepping furniture), which also can’t be tackled by a computer.20. schlep： 攜帶，搬運(yùn)；tackle：解決，處理。

As the labor market continues to struggle to recover all of the jobs lost during the Great Recession21. Great Recession： 大蕭條，是指1929年至1933年之間全球性的經(jīng)濟(jì)大衰退。, the question that haunted the 1950s is rising again:Have we reached a stage at which technology is destroying more jobs than it is creating? After all, what took 1,000 people to churn out in 1950—when bluecollar work could launch someone with a high-school degree into the middle class—now takes fewer than 200.22. churn out： 快速生產(chǎn)，大量生產(chǎn)；launch： 開(kāi)展，發(fā)動(dòng)。

Most economists dismiss (or at least heavily discount) the idea. Follow the historic pattern, they argue. Innovative and entrepreneurial, the United States has always found a way to make lots of jobs out of the next new thing. It can be dif ficult getting from here to there—“very, very disruptive23. disruptive： 破壞的，擾亂的。and very, very hard” for masses of people caught in the transition, as James Cash, a Harvard business professor, puts it. But we’ve always produced enough jobs while absorbing the mechanical cotton picker, the mainframe, the microprocessor, the robot, and so much more.24. mainframe： 大型計(jì)算機(jī)；microprocessor： 微處理器?！癘ver the long term, employment rates are fairly stable,” Lawrence Katz told theMIT Technology Reviewearlier this year. “People have always been able to create new jobs.”

John Husing, an economist in the Inland Empire,the region east of Los Angeles where the Skechers facility is located, agrees. Even though he was the one who told me about the warehouse, marveling at the way “nobody touches a box, nobody touches a shoe,” he believes that we’re in the midst of a classic structural shift in the economy. “Do I think there will be enough jobs?” he asks. “Yes, I do.” Then he adds: “How are you going to distribute the shoes?Somebody has to drive the trucks.”

Well, maybe not for long. Over the summer,The Wall Street Journalreported on a growing phenomenon: autonomous trucks. A fleet of these driverless rigs requires “no workers’ compensation,no payroll tax,25. fleet： 車(chē)隊(duì)；rig： 鉸鏈?zhǔn)娇ㄜ?chē)；payroll tax：工資稅。no health-care bene fits,” James Barrett, the president of a transport company in Scranton,Pennsylvania, told the Journal. “You keep going down the checklist,and it becomes pretty cheap.”

The duo, who co-authored the 2011 bookRace Against the Machine, are convinced that, as Brynjolfsson has described it, “we’re having the automation and the job destruction,” but “we’re not having the creation at the same pace” anymore. Life will change for the better in many ways because of these breakthroughs26. breakthrough： 突破。.Consumers will delight in a wealth of new products, services, and experiences. But, say Brynjolfsson and McAfee, we “also need to start preparing for a technology-fueled economy that’s ever more productive but that just might not need a great deal of human labor.”

What that portends for our social fabric, one can only imagine.27. portend： 預(yù)示，預(yù)兆；social fabric： 社會(huì)結(jié)構(gòu)，社會(huì)組織。When the UAW’s Walter Reuther visited a state-of-the-art Ford plant in Cleveland in 1954, the executive showing him around pointed to a series of automated loading machines.28. state-of-the-art： 最先進(jìn)的；load： 裝載，裝貨?！癏ow are you going to collect union dues29. union due： 工會(huì)會(huì)費(fèi)。from these guys?” the executive asked. Replied Reuther: “How are you going to get them to buy Fords?”